After a few weeks of driving a 4 door hatchback Optra 5, I've become quite disgruntled with poor road handling, particularly the rear of the car 'bobbing' around on road bumps. It seems there's minimal shock re-boound to counteract this behaviour, and as more miles are put on the car it appears to be worse.
When negotiating a corner where expansion joints are present on the road, the rear of the car steps out of line! My wife finds this very alarming.
Overall the cars suspension has been designed very soft with low spring rates and soft shocks, unfortunately this impacts on the cars 'mechanical grip' on the road, as it is very 'wallowy' or fidgety if I can use those terms. On wet roads I find front end grip to be quite poor at normal speeds, again I believe this is suspension related and magnified by the cars 'floatiness'.
It seems impossible to locate after market springs and shocks for the Optra, does anyone have any pointers here ?
If other Optra owners have experienced poor road handling and soft suspension behavior I'd be interested to hear your comments.
Cheers
Johnnie